Water influences urban planning only in the broadest sense. It doesn’t tell us where to build or in what configuration. But it determines how many of us can live here.
High Speed Rail is Dead, Long Live High Speed Rail
As a piece of urbanism, Newsom’s revised experiment in high speed rail will be fascinating, and perhaps revelatory
Beating the Amazon Con
In short, cities should quit wasting money on corporate welfare and, if they’re going to proactively pursue economic development programs (itself a measure of dubious value), they should stick to homegrown assets. The pursuit of Amazon in particular, though, was as ironic as it was perverse.
The Clarity of Robert Venturi
Robert Venturi, who died last week at 93, was not an urbanist as such. But in rejecting modernism and bringing honesty to discussions about aesthetics, Venturi deserves a debt of gratitude from planners and other architects alike.
Eviction Is Only Part Of The Housing Crisis
I think I was the only reader in the country unmoved by Evicted, Matthew Desmond’s Pulitzer Prize-winning inquiry into the dark heart of America’s eviction crisis
The Sad Debate Over SB 827
Few land use laws captured the public imagination and animated the land use community the way SB 827 did in its three short months on this earth
Reconsidering Paradise: How Honolulu Became a Poster Child for American Autocentric Urbanism
Honolulu should be the most distinctive city in the country. Instead, Honolulu looks like Houston with volcanoes.
Yelp in My Backyard
Yelp is one of the few tech companies whose product is linked, intrinsically and immutably, to the real world.
Sierra Club California Blazes Wrong Trail on Urbanism
Mountains may stand forever, but advocacy groups are fragile. For the good of California and the country — especially these days — I hope the Sierra Club rebuilds and refocuses itself before it’s too late.
California Cities, Counties Grapple With Cannabis
Mountains may stand forever, but advocacy groups are fragile. For the good of California and the country — especially these days — I hope the Sierra Club rebuilds and refocuses itself before it’s too late.
A Tale of Two Cities: Tourism and Imperialism in Sri Lanka
The semi-palindromic nature of the names Ella and Galle, while coincidental, are poignant nonetheless. They are two sides of the same coin. The question is whether that coin is a guilder, a pence, a rupee—or the almighty dollar.
The Transit Crisis Is Really A Housing Crisis
Los Angeles’ shortage of housing and shortage of high-density transit-friendly neighborhoods has run headlong into the obscene, bacchanalian overabundance of automobiles
Undoing the Legacy of Segregation in California
However integrated the United States may be today, Rothstein pointed out a damning truism: the country cannot de-segregate just because laws have changed.
The Opposite of Gentrification
If these communities are going to, at the same time, decry the invasion of newcomers and oppose most development, then they face but one option: they must promote development elsewhere.
Cannabis, Urbanism and Storefront Ethics
If we’re going to condemn one form of legal commerce on ethical grounds, we might as well take a look at all the others while we’re at it.
A Sermon for the Homeless
A recent conference hosted by the American Institute of Architects in Los Angeles shined a light on efforts to reduce homelessness in Los Angeles—and demonstrated just how much work must be done nationwide to solve this humanitarian crisis.